idosubaru

i'd guess 15' is too short for your needs, i'd hold out for something better. i don't know how long mine is, i think it's a 15 footer, but it's not long enough. i usually wish it were longer. it's hard to be "too long" but can get "too short" in a hurry when you wish it wasn't. you guys have had the factory tow hooks pull out? i use them all the time for pulling/dragging other cars in snow, mud, whatever. what do you do in place of these hooks? and i know nothing about 4 wheeling, offroading. i've never gotten into it, i just hunt, fishin, drive through snow for fun or to go sledding...basically when i need to. never go trail riding or anything so keep the 4WD lingo to a minimum!

full sized spares and a floor jack rock for any road trips. flashlight i wouldn't bother with tune-up stuff if the car is running fine and it has been taken care of. just keep up the standard maintenance, if it's time then do it, if not then do it when it is.

better yet, run your car hot until the overheating blows the headgasket EXTERNALLY and then take it in...maybe to another dealer. people can and do get cars fixed after the warranty period, but it requires good touch or good people skills or threats, or persistence or some combination of all of these. just asking and accepting they're first answer will rarely get you anywhere. good luck. i say install a 2.2 liter motor, they never blow headgaskets and are much better motors for reliabilitythough have less power.

oh crack i forgot about removing the old gasket...this job sucks! don't yank at the pan, it'll look like it comes off easy, but don't let that deceive you. there are baffles in the pan with cut outs in them that the oil sump runs through towards the bottom of the pan. the pan will have to be "slid" around in a way...can't think of a good way to describe it. just don't yank at it. if it won't come off (which it won't at first eventhough it looks like it should), keep sliding it around until all the stars align and it comes off.

the oil pan is a pain. you'll have to unbolt the engine mounts and actually lift the motor a few inches to get at the rear bolts of the pan. are you absolutely sure the oil pan is the cause of leaks? often times every other leak in the engine...valve covers, crank seals, cam seals, cam o-rings, head gaskets....will leak oil that coagulates on the engine crossmember and drips down all over and around the oil pan. on any leaky subaru, the oil pan is wet and dripping usually but it's not because the oil pan is leaking anything. i'd verify for sure it's leaking before starting this job. and yes the exhaust will have to come, but often the exhaust manifold gaskets are reusable. more than likely to have some stripped exhaust manifold head stud holes though, that's very common and fun (nope sure isn't!!!). you can do a visual on the exhaust gaskets, if they leak then order new ones. or order new ones ahead of time and you're golden. i have lots of extra XT6 header gaskets because i've bought them but reused the old ones.

off a generic website, doesn't say auto or manual. 1996 Subaru Legacy Outback 9.8 1997 Subaru Legacy Outback Ltd. 9.1

radio shack sells the switch i used. like he said...a few minutes and i was done. works perfect "50/50" split. i'm confused why people aren't just doing this instead of poking around the internet, looking for more options and gizmos. a switch and cutting one wire is easy. this thread is crazy long for one switch.

we have them over at www.xt6.net go to the Parts Wanted Forum and like the first thread is an XT and XT6 parts sheet, i've seen the rear mustache bar there.

i have one made from a carriage bolt, the head if filed down to grab the pin. made by someone else, not me.

yeah i was curious about that too will. they're all swappable as far as i know, never heard or could imagine a difference.

the ECU (engine computer) will throw a code anytime it sees an issue with a circuit related to the input it receives. so basically any sensor in the engine bay can give a bad reading, but it's not always critical. depends which sensor it is and what kind of failure mode or problem it is experiencing. sometimes it's just corrossion on a connector making a bad connection. sometimes the car will drive, sometimes it won't, again that just depends. now if something really bad happened it is possible a check engine light could indicate bad things for your car and you shouldn't be driving it, particularly since you have an interference engine. if a failing timing belt rips your crank sensor wire off, so the ECU sees no crank sensor input and the CEL light goes on then that's a problem. that's not a realistic scenario, just something off the top of my head as a disclaimer that it "might" not be good to drive it. there's no certainty until you get it checked out.

sort of correct, emissions issues. it is okay to drive so long as it's not experiencing any immediate issues. check oil level and make sure it's not overheating and drive it. go to Autozone or Advance or other auto parts stores that offer free diagnostics. they'll use your OBDII plug to tell you why the CEL is on. a dealer or shop will charge $50-$100 to do this.

what he said. that's a good call, seen some other confusion in the past. i'm not EA82 expert so i can't help you out. a search will turn up more info as i've seen what he's talking about before.

i was working on an XT6 this summer that i had picked up and was going to sell. it had a brand new bushing in it, so they should be available. the entire part was new, the "top" plate of the rear diff carrier so to speak, not just the bushing. so i guess it comes as an assembly. i swapped it with the one in my daily driver since i had wanted to put one in anyway. the one in my daily driver was broken, cracked all the way through so i grabbed another used one i had lying around to install. Subaru calls it a Support Bracket (it has the new bushing in it like i mentioned): w/o Full Time 4WD Subaru Part Number 741321110 ($62.75) w/ Full Time 4WD Subaru Part Number 41320GA060 ($73.20) kind of surprised they list different part numbers...not sure what that means, but one of those should do you right. those are rough prices, might be able to get better through the online places.

you can pick up used tires for 15-40 bucks. i bought from www.bordertires.com in my college days. good company, check them out.

you're not raining, you're bragging and comparing apples to oranges. congratulations.

if the car ran fine before with the helicoils then they shouldn't be the problem. you didn't remove the distributor did you? is there anything wrong with the helicoils? they have always worked great as far as i know. the cheapest solution if you did need other heads would be to buy a set of used heads from someone. you can pick those up relatively inexpensively. you should have a valve job done ($150-$200). but on a good set of heads that wasn't overheated you could get by just installing them straight up. i'd at least try to have them milled ($40) and new valve stem seals installed ($50), the valve stem seals will come with the head gasket set. if you can remove valve springs yourself you could do the valve stem seals yourself. replacing the heads due to spark plug threads seems overboard to me, but i can't see the problem. might want to get the car to a shop (or machine shop) and see if they can fix it if yo'ure not sure what to do.

wal mart has a connector that works on the old school XT6, very surprising as auto parts store don't carry much for that odd ball car. but they might have something for yours. i will say the connector works, but the color codes they supply are incorrect in the packaging, but i imagine newer/more popular cars would be more streamlined. i've seen people post easy ways to tell which wires are which and i've done it, it's not that hard. you can check for continuity between speakers and the wires at the radio as well. have you searched, might be posed on here, alot of that stereo stuff is generic.

i wrote this as an article for the XT6 website, i think it would be most useful to many on here. the same article resides there, the pictures are larger over there if you'd like to check them out or just load these and blow them up.

The bearings for most of the pulleys on older engines become void of grease, noisey and free wheeling over time. A new or freshly packed bearing will feel "tight" and not spin freely at all. Very few pulleys that I enounter on older subaru's are worthy of reinstallation. It is a good idea to look at a new pulley at the parts store next time you're there if you're not sure what a brand new bearing feels like. It's easy to assume free wheelin bearings are the norm on are older cars if you've never felt a new one before. It is possible to source new bearings and have a shop install them. It will require a machine shop press to install them unless you are patient and have the tools to do it yourself. I destroyed one pulley in an attempt to do that and don't plan on trying that again. When I sourced new bearings about 5 years ago, the cost of the parts and having a machine shop install them was not good enough for me to jump on board the idea. In some areas maybe this is a better alternative. Now I live in a rural area, don't feel like sourcing the parts and machine shop time is expensive. And of course I'd rather do it myself, it's always more fun that way. Tools Needed: Finish nail or other thin/adequate device. Grease gun Needle Attachment for grease gun. While this is a really simple job, I would recommend having an extra set of pulley bearings already packed and ready to install to make your timing belt job quick and painless. You'll never know if you have any bad pulleys until you have it apart. And while it's not likely one is bad you also don't want to be in a rush while packing the pulleys as doing it incorrectly or in haste will destroy your new timing belt in short order. Overall this is a simple job, I've done it to a number of XT6's and extra pulleys. It only takes a couple minutes and some patience. I highly suggest trying this on a spare or junk pulley, not one you need. The job isn't difficult, but better to practice than rely on getting it right the first time you do it for the car you need. The bearings have a thin metal cover over them to retain the grease and protect them from water and dirt. The idea is to pry back this cover as little as possible in order to insert a grease gun needle into the bearings. As in the first picture, gently wedge a nail (or equivalent) into the inside of the bearing cover. Use as little force as possible to gently lift up the cover. It is better to keep missing it because you're not deep enough or pushing hard enough until you get it just right than to overshoot your mark and damage the cover. The needle is very small and wedged shape itself, so you won't need much room to work with to get it in there. Do not pry up excessively, the bearing cover can and will come up with excessive force (more on this later). Have your grease gun packed with high quality grease for this application and a grease gun needle as pictured in the second picture. Insert the tip of the gun under the cover at an angle as shown. You won't go deep as the bearings are in the way, but you can go under the cover further. AFter inserting the needle, keep it flat against the pulley and use your finger to press tightly against the needle entry area to prevent grease from coming back out as you pump the grease gun. I think *roughly* 2 good pumps in with my grease gun set up works well. Pump the gun once, then take the needle out and rotate the bearing around. Attach it to a drill or just spin it by hand is fine as well to spread the grease around the bearings. Then insert the needle and repeat the procedure again. I would use as little grease as possible to tighten up the pulleys and make them feel smooth, one pump will probably do, though i've used more in mine. Again, keep adding little bits at a time until it feels good and smooth. This is important - Don't pump too much grease in. As mentioned before the cover can come off and continued over pumping of the gun can and will push the cover off the bearing as well. Also if you put excessive grease in, it will start to come out of the pulley after the car is in use for awhile, the high RPM's and forces will heat the grease and push it out. That's not necessarily bad except that the grease could get on the timing belt and it just gets messy and looks funny. You will hear "popping" noises as the air bubbles are pushed out and moved around, that is normal. You may also see nasty brown grease come out around the edges or backside of the cover, this is the old grease/water/dirt coming out. Usually not much comes out, but I have had a couple do that and that's good to get that out but they are all that bad. After installing the pulleys you could check them after a couple drives or a week and see if there is any grease that needs to be wiped off from being pushed out after the engine is ran and heated up to operating temperatures a few times. Some will creep out the edges (like where you inserted the needle, if you packed alot in there). This shouldn't be an issue if you pack lightly, I overpacked the first time I did it since I was experimenting. If you'd like, leave the left and right covers off since they are very easy to see how they look. Unfortunately those two covers don't really give you good access to all the pulleys.

check the throttle cables, they can be sticking somewhere along the line. check at the pedal to see if it is physically returning to "idle", maybe it is sticking down. also check in the engine bay that the cables arent' catching or sticking on anything. follow from fire wall to carb. there's probably a return spring on the throttle (not familiar with carbs, never touched one), if the return spring is shot, there's nothing to bring the throttle back down so to speak. i don't know carbs so i think they have something different than a throttle plate, but the principle should be the same with a return spring somewhere.

don't some newer impreza's have limited slip center diff options as well? any chance of those swapping over?

awesome will, excellent work. now...i can't believe noone else is asking this...am i that stupid? i've done alot of work on subaru's but noone else is wondering....what all is involved in swapping an LSD front diff into an EA (or ER) series? i've never taken apart a transmission before. how hard is the swap?

i'm well aware of the lack of a center differential and clutch packs/extension housing application for the 4EAT. i guess his description/semantics are a typo as i know he knows as well. wasn't trying to start a technical debate, just mention that he's built his own TCU that also allows control of line pressure for some reason, what ever that offers. he completely tore down the transmission and had all sorts of modifications done to the clutch packs, valve body, etc. his semantics might be off, but his controller allowed manual control of most of the AT parameters...whatever that gives you.

if only one lifter is noisey, i would suspect that lifter, not oil pressure or main bearing issues. rebuilt lifters or cleaning them yourself is the way to go (but disassembly and reassembly is too time consuming in my oppinion). unless you have an ultrasonic cleaner, that may work better? i would replace the two lifters on the cylinder you say is noisey with rebuilt or new units and go from there.